Consolation of Philosophy, by Boetius

Proem.

Anicus Manlius Severinus Boethius lived in the last quarter of the fifth century A.D., and the first quarter of the
sixth. He was growing to manhood, when Theodoric, the famous Ostrogoth, crossed the Alps and made himself master of
Italy. Boethius belonged to an ancient family, which boasted a connection with the legendary glories of the Republic,
and was still among the foremost in wealth and dignity in the days of Rome’s abasement. His parents dying early, he was
brought up by Symmachus, whom the age agreed to regard as of almost saintly character, and afterwards became his
son-inlaw. His varied gifts, aided by an excellent education, won for him the reputation of the most accomplished man
of his time. He was orator, poet, musician, philosopher. It is his peculiar distinction to have handed on to the Middle
Ages the tradition of Greek philosophy by his Latin translations of the works of Aristotle. Called early to a public
career, the highest honours of the State came to him unsought. He was sole Consul in 510 A.D., and was ultimately
raised by Theodoric to the dignity of Magister Officiorum, or head of the whole civil administration. He was no less
happy in his domestic life, in the virtues of his wife, Rusticiana, and the fair promise of his two sons, Symmachus and
Boethius; happy also in the society of a refined circle of friends. Noble, wealthy, accomplished, universally esteemed
for his virtues, high in the favour of the Gothic King, he appeared to all men a signal example of the union of merit
and good fortune. His felicity seemed to culminate in the year 522 A.D., when, by special and extraordinary favour, his
two sons, young as they were for so exalted an honour, were created joint Consuls and rode to the senate-house attended
by a throng of senators, and the acclamations of the multitude. Boethius himself, amid the general applause, delivered
the public speech in the King’s honour usual on such occasions. Within a year he was a solitary prisoner at Pavia,
stripped of honours, wealth, and friends, with death hanging over him, and a terror worse than death, in the fear lest
those dearest to him should be involved in the worst results of his downfall. It is in this situation that the opening
of the ‘Consolation of Philosophy’ brings Boethius before us. He represents himself as seated in his prison distraught
with grief, indignant at the injustice of his misfortunes, and seeking relief for his melancholy in writing verses
descriptive of his condition. Suddenly there appears to him the Divine figure of Philosophy, in the guise of a woman of
superhuman dignity and beauty, who by a succession of discourses convinces him of the vanity of regret for the lost
gifts of fortune, raises his mind once more to the contemplation of the true good, and makes clear to him the mystery
of the world’s moral government.